


The Adventures of InvinciGal: Volume 1

by my_mad_fatuation



Series: The Adventures of InvinciGal [1]
Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-26 23:19:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12069003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: Rae works as a researcher studying super powers, but her co-worker Finn doesn't know that she secretly has one of her own.





	1. Chapter 1

“InvinciGal, hurry!”

“What is it now, RapidFire?” Rae asked impatiently. She knew her sidekick tended to get overdramatic about most things; they were usually not nearly as urgent as she made them seem.

“I was just doing my rounds and I found some guy getting mugged just up the street there!” said Izzy.

“And you didn’t stop it?”

“What am I going to do? Run around in circles really fast until the mugger gets dizzy? Come on, hurry!”

“Easy for you to say,” said Rae. Though she was a fast runner, particularly for someone of her size, there was no way she could compete with Izzy. Of course, speed was Izzy’s _thing_.

“What the f—?” The mugger seemed confused when two spandex-clad women wearing masks appeared in front of him as he pointed a blade at his victim.

“Drop your weapon!” Rae commanded him.

He pointed the knife at her instead, though he looked terrified. “Who’re you? What’s going on?”

“I’m InvinciGal,” she said, taking a few steps towards him. “And this is my associate RapidFire, who told me about your little predicament.”

He eyed Izzy warily as she stood in between him and his victim, but kept his blade pointed at Rae.

“So why don’t you drop the weapon,” she continued, “and I won’t have to hurt you.”

Well, that just seemed to anger him. “Back off!” he shouted, his arm shaking, fully extended.

“I gave you a choice,” said Rae. She looked over at Izzy. “Didn’t I give him a choice?”

“You did,” said Izzy.

“I said back off!” the mugger shouted again when Rae kept walking calmly towards him.

She tut-tutted before lunging for him, and he stabbed with his knife, getting her right through her palm. Without a single reaction to the stab wound in her left hand, she continued forward and clobbered him with her right. One punch and he was down.

“It’s almost too easy,” she said as she turned back to face her companion. The mugging victim had already fled.

“Uh, InvinciGal…” said Izzy, pointing at the blade protruding out of Rae’s hand.

“Oh, right,” said Rae. She grabbed the handle and yanked the knife out.

“I can’t look,” Izzy said, covering her eyes. “I know it doesn’t hurt you, but it looks so painful.”

“It’s fine,” Rae replied as she wiggled her fingers waiting for the wound to heal. “Look, all better now.” She held up her hand, which was left without so much as a scar.

“You don’t even know where that thing’s been. It could be covered in diseases.”

“Then I’ll heal myself from them,” she said with a laugh.

“It’s still gross,” said Izzy. “I wish you would try harder not to get stabbed.”

***

“Morning, Finn,” Rae said when she set her bag down beside her workstation the next day.

“Y’alright, Rae?” her co-worker replied, walking over to her with his hands behind his back. “Do anything interesting last night?”

“If you can call watching four hours of Netflix and going to bed at ten interesting,” she said.

“So I guess you have no need for this, then,” Finn added, holding up a takeaway coffee cup that he’d been hiding from her.

Her eyes lit up with delight. “It was a pretty restless nine hours of sleep, to be honest,” she said as she grabbed the cup from his hand.

“I thought so,” he said with a smile.

“You are too good to me, you know that, Finn?” she said after taking the first sip.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “One of these days I’m going to ask you for a huge favour and you will just have to comply.”

“Ah, so this isn’t altruistic coffee, then.”

“Is there even such a thing?”

“I suppose not.” She took another sip to hide the fact that she was smiling.

Rae and Finn had been working together for several months now, and he brought her coffee every morning since her second day there. She kept hoping that he would ask her out, but he didn’t. And she couldn’t ask him out because she wasn’t tough enough to handle rejection. Sure, she was strong after years of training and pushing herself physically, but she was emotionally fragile.

“Enough lollygagging, you two,” said the head researcher, Archie, when he walked in. He lightly punched Finn on the shoulder to indicate that he was sort of teasing them. But also sort of serious.

“Sorry, sir,” Finn replied, giving him a fake salute. “What’s on the docket for today?”

Archie flipped open the folder he was cradling in his arm and tapped the page with his finger. “Case study. Number 1538-76. It’s ready to go in exam room B,” he said as he handed the folder over to Finn. “You know the procedure, so I trust the pair of you will be able to handle it on your own today.”

“You’re not coming in with us?” Rae asked.

“I’ve got far too much administrative work to do today, I’m afraid,” he said. “You’ll be fine, though. Just stick to the procedure.”

“Don’t set the place on fire. Got it,” said Finn, swatting Archie on the arm with the folder he’d been given. He nodded his head at Rae to indicate that she should follow him.

“This is exciting,” he said to her once they were out of the lab and on their way to the exam rooms.

“What, doing a case study on our own?” she asked.

“Yes! Isn’t this exciting? Why aren’t you excited? You should be excited,” he added, grabbing her arm eagerly.

“I never said I wasn’t excited,” said Rae.

“You look scared. Are you scared?”

“Nervous, maybe,” she said. “I don’t want to mess it up.”

“You won’t mess it up,” Finn replied as he grasped the door handle to Examination Room B. “Shall we?”

“After you,” she said when he opened the door.

She followed him into the exam room where a young woman—she had to have been an adult to participate in the study, but she looked to be just barely—was sitting at a stainless steel table in the middle.

“Hi, there,” Finn said in a friendly voice to the young woman as he took a seat across from her at the table. “What’s your name?”

Rae, who had been unlocking the cabinet in the corner to get out the supplies, stopped to look at him. He wasn’t supposed to ask that. This was not the procedure.

“Georgia,” the young woman replied meekly.

“Hi, Georgia, I’m Finn,” he said. “And that over there’s Rae. We’re going to be working with you today, is that okay?”

She was already supposed to have given her permission before arrival, Rae thought. There was no need to ask her now. This was not the procedure.

Georgia nodded. “Wh—What do I have to do?” she asked.

“We’re just going to do a few tests and ask a few questions,” he explained. “And if you think something is too invasive, you don’t have to do it, all right?”

She nodded again.

“We’ll start with the swab, okay?” he continued. “Rae here’s just going to swab the inside of your cheek. Just so we can test your saliva, got it?”

Rae pulled on a pair of latex gloves and prepared a clean swab before heading over to Case Study No. 1538-76 and asking her to open her mouth. When Rae had gotten the sample, she sealed up the swab and set it on a tray at the side of the room.

“You still doing all right?” Finn asked Georgia, and she nodded timidly yet again. “Next we need to take a blood sample,” he added. “Are you okay with needles, Georgia?”

“I—I think so,” she replied, looking over at Rae, who was preparing the equipment.

“If you like, I can ask you some questions while it’s being done, to distract you from it,” he said.

“That sounds good.”

“First,” he began, reading off the page in the folder as Rae applied the tourniquet to Georgia’s arm, “how would you describe the nature of your super power or ability?”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d call it that _super_ ,” said Georgia. “I can just see really well. Like, I can read the finest print—print that looks like a line to most people—without any assistance. Stuff like that.”

Finn jotted down a few notes. “Good, good. Now, when did you discover this ability?”

“Um, I guess my parents discovered it when I was a young child,” she said, wincing as Rae cleaned a spot on her arm with alcohol. It must have startled her. “They would read picture books with me and I would point out the tiniest details in the images. Details like broken or uneven lines that they could only see with a magnifying glass.”

“You’re going to feel a sharp scratch,” Rae warned her as she poised the needle over Georgia’s arm.

Georgia nodded and took a deep breath.

While Rae went about taking the blood sample, Finn continued with his questioning. “What about during puberty? Did you gain any new abilities or powers you did not previously have?”

“Just the power to severely annoy my mother,” she said with a timid laugh. “But no, I don’t think I have any others.”

“You’re doing really well, Georgia,” he said. “One final question and we’ll let you go, okay? Is there a history of super powers or abilities in your family?”

“Not that I know of, but my family is pretty traditional and they may have just hidden them,” she answered.

“All done,” Rae said as she removed the needle and placed a cotton ball over the puncture site. She disposed of the used equipment and labelled the samples while Finn thanked Georgia for her co-operation.

“You did great, really,” he said to her with a broad smile. He looked at the file again and added, “Now, it says here you’ve agreed to neuroimaging—that’s scans of your brain—is that correct?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re still all right with that?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, we’ll set up an appointment with the specialist for you, then.” He closed the file and smiled at her again as he stood up. “Thanks again for helping us out today, Georgia. I’ll show you to the recovery room. You just need to stay for fifteen minutes to make sure you feel fine after you’ve had blood taken, and then someone will help you find your way out of the building.” He laughed a little, like he was acknowledging that the place must seem like a maze to anyone who wasn’t used to it.

Rae finished cleaning and packing up the samples before returning to the lab. Finn came back shortly afterwards and headed straight for his workstation, so she walked over to him and leaned against it. “What was that about?” she asked.

He looked confused. “What was what about?”

“You were so chatty and friendly to the case study,” she said. “That’s not the procedure.”

“Look,” he replied, lowering his voice, “I know Archie sees them as walking meat-sacks, but these are human beings we’re studying, are they not? They deserve to be treated with a little respect. Plus, she was so young; she was probably terrified of being here. I was trying to make it easier for her. Besides, we got the samples and the answers we needed to get, so who cares about _the procedure_?”

“You’re unbelievable.”

He furrowed his brow but then smiled. “Thank you.”

***

The weekend had been pretty uneventful so far for Rae. She broke up a few rowdy gangs of youths Saturday night, but Sundays were usually fairly quiet. In fact, she was just about to pack it in for the night when she suddenly heard screaming.

She and Izzy looked around trying to find the direction of the screams until they saw smoke coming out the top of a building several blocks away, in the Regent’s Park area.

“RapidFire, you go up ahead and see if anyone’s in trouble,” said Rae. “I’ll follow.”

In a flash, Izzy was gone, and Rae started running towards the source of the smoke. When she arrived, she saw that there was a large semi-detached home on fire, with a couple of people huddled in front of it and several onlookers watching from across the street. No fire-fighters or emergency services yet, though.

Izzy was already there talking to the couple when Rae caught up to them.

“Is everyone out?” Rae asked.

“My babies are in there!” cried the woman, lifting her head from where she’d been sobbing into her husband’s shoulder.

“There are babies in there?” said Rae in disbelief.

“She means the dachshunds,” said the man, not sounding nearly as concerned as his wife.

“How many are in there?”

“Two.”

“Where will I find them?”

“They’re in an enclosure in the mudroom,” said the woman.

Rae was puzzled. “What’s a mudroom?”

“The room at the back of the house,” the man said exasperatedly. “Just hurry!”

She turned and ran around the outside of the house, hopping over the gate, to get to the back door, but when she reached for the handle, she could tell it was hot. That was of no concern to her, and she grabbed hold of it and yanked the door open. Her hand was covered with red blisters, but only for a few moments.

She quickly found the dogs, barking and scuttling in their enclosure as the room around them burned down. Just as she was about to pick up the first one, she noticed something on the ground in front of it—a business card that was entirely black. She stuffed the card into her top and scooped up the dogs before heading back around to the front of the house. She had to unlatch the gate this time, as she couldn’t just climb over it with two dogs in her arms, and she figured it might be a faux-pas to throw the dogs over.

“Oh, my babies!” the woman called out when Rae appeared. She ran up to her and took the dogs from her hands, showering them with kisses.

Rae could hear the sirens as emergency vehicles were approaching, and figured she’d better make herself scarce—those guys didn’t care much for her kind. She ran and hid behind a neighbouring building, and Izzy soon joined her.

“I think I know the cause of the fire,” Rae said to her, holding up the card that she’d tucked away. The card was matte black, and had glossy black text with three letters: DRC. “Looks like we need to pay someone a little visit.”

***

Rae and Izzy got some funny looks from people on the tube, but they were used to it by now. No, they weren’t the only people in London who used their powers to fight crime, but most supers just lived ordinary lives, without masks. It did tend to draw attention.

The pair of them made their way to 30 St Mary Axe—The Gherkin—and Izzy managed to zip into the building as someone was leaving, letting Rae in shortly afterwards. They went up to the twenty-seventh floor, where they were greeted by a couple of guardsmen at the entrance to the office space.

“Are you lost?” one asked gruffly.

“Look at our outfits,” Rae said, gesturing to herself. “We’re clearly here to see the _doctor_.”

“Is he expecting you?” the second guardsman asked.

“He’d better be.”

He looked at his associate, who nodded, before letting Rae and Izzy through the glass doors.

They walked past empty offices until they reached one on the far end, completely enclosed in glass. Inside, a masked man was sitting at a desk, though he seemed distracted by his computer and didn’t notice them walk in.

“Working late on a Sunday?” said Rae. “You should have a word with your boss.”

“Well, well, well,” he said, looking up at them. “If it isn’t InvinciGal and her little sidekick.”

“Her name is RapidFire,” said Rae, standing with her arms crossed.

“Of course.” He smiled phonily at them. “Have a seat, please,” he added, motioning to the chairs on the other side of the desk.

“We’re not here to shoot the breeze,” she replied, slamming the black card down onto his desk. “We’re here about this, _Dr. Commotion_.”

“That’s… my business card,” he said slowly, like he was worried it was a trick question.

“It is,” said Rae. “And it was found at the site of a house fire tonight. Can you explain that?”

“A house fire? That doesn’t sound like something I would do, does it?” he said. “I mean, it’s just so crass.”

“But one of your lackeys, maybe?”

“Well, I can’t say for certain about that. I control objects, not people.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Whose house was it?”

“I dunno, some rich couple with tiny dogs,” she said.

“Mr. and Mrs. Hartley,” said Izzy. “I spoke to them before you arrived, InvinciGal.”

“Hartley?” Dr. Commotion asked. “As in Henry Hartley?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Izzy replied.

“Oh, then maybe it was my fault,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Hartley is one of the biggest proponents of anti-super legislation in our government today. He was getting in the way of some of my projects, so I asked someone to take care of it. I didn’t tell him to set the house on fire, though,” he added with his hands up. “Are the dogs all right?”

“The dogs are fine,” Rae snapped. “Thanks to me.”

“You know, this might actually have worked out perfectly,” he continued. “He’ll have to change his stance on supers once it comes out that one of them saved his precious dachshunds.”

“How do you know they were dachshunds?” said Izzy with her hand on her hip.

“I always study my targets,” he said.

She pointed at him triumphantly. “Aha! So you were behind it!”

“I already said that.”

“Oh. Right.”

“So what kind of projects of yours was he in the way of?” asked Rae.

“That’s none of your concern,” he said.

“You’re my arch-nemesis; I think it concerns me a little.”

“I’m your arch-nemesis?” He gave her a look like one would give a child who had just said something adorable—she could tell even with the mask on. “That is so sweet.”

“I’ve got my eyes on you, _doctor_ ,” she said, glaring at him as she backed out of the room.

“How exciting.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Morning, Finn,” Rae said on her way past her co-worker to her workstation.

“Morning, Rae,” he replied, swivelling around in his chair. “How was your weekend?”

“Oh, the usual,” she said. “You?”

“Had a drink with some of my mates on Saturday, but that was about it.” He picked up a coffee cup from his worktop and walked it over to her when she sat down. “Your Monday morning jolt, m’lady?”

“Thank you, kind sir,” she said as he handed it over. “This is going to be one of those weeks, I can tell.”

“Should I have made this an Irish coffee?” he joked.

“Save that for Wednesday, if I’m still alive by then.”

He laughed and patted her on the shoulder just as Archie walked in.

“Am I interrupting the fun?” Archie asked.

“Nope, I was just about to get to work,” said Finn, pointing towards his workstation.

“Good,” said Archie. “I take it you’ll just be continuing what you started on Friday?”

“Unless there’s a case study.”

“Not today,” he replied. “Better get those samples analyzed, though.”

“Right on it, boss,” said Finn, giving Archie a thumbs up.

Archie looked at Rae and rolled his eyes, which made her laugh, before heading into his office.

She got up from her seat once he was gone and headed over to the cabinet beside her workstation to get out her equipment for testing samples. The cabinet was difficult to open, however, and she had to tug on the handle a few times until it finally jerked open. She felt it bump into her forearm, but didn’t think anything of it until she set down her tools on her worktop.

“Rae, you’re bleeding!” said Finn, rushing over from the other side of the room.

She looked back and saw the trail of blood from the cabinet to where she stood and then looked at her arm. There was a decently sized gash, but it was already starting to heal by the time Finn got to her. “It’s just a little cut,” she said. “It’s nothing, I’m fine.”

“I’ll go get you a plaster for it, anyway,” he said, returning to the far side of the room to fetch the First Aid kit with a jog in his step. When he returned with antibiotic ointment and an adhesive bandage, however, the wound was gone.

“Where’s your cut?” he asked, holding her arm up to inspect it.

“I told you, it was nothing.”

“How did that much blood come from such a small cut, though?”

“I bleed easily, I guess,” she said.

“Well, are you gonna be all right?” He put his hand on her shoulder again, but this time it was more compassionate than jovial.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. This happens all the time,” she replied. “I’d better clean this up before it sets, though—“

“I can do that, you just take it easy for a few minutes, okay?”

She took a seat at her workstation as he cleaned up the mess she had made, feeling a little embarrassed about it. But she was relieved that he didn’t ask too many prying questions about what happened to the injury. She knew that if anyone at work found out about her ability, she would be taken off the research team due to potential bias.

She had devoted the past ten years of her life to researching super powers—that and strengthening her own. Between the hours of studying biochemistry and the hours of strength training, her early twenties were an antisocial blur. Which may have been why she had no idea how to ask someone out.

“Rae,” Finn said once he’d finished mopping up her mess, “can I ask you something?”

She immediately worried that he was going to ask more questions about her arm, but hesitantly replied, “Sure…”

“This is going to seem weird, given the circumstances,” he continued, holding up a wad of paper towels soaked with her blood, “but would you like to go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Dinner?” she asked, completely surprised.

“You know, that meal that comes after lunch but before breakfast,” he said as he tossed the towels in the bin and washed his hands at the sink near the door.

“Yes, I know what dinner is.”

“You owe me a huge favour, remember?” he added.

“Oh, so you’re asking me to buy you dinner, then,” she said.

He laughed. “No, I’m just asking for your company at dinner.”

“Why?” she replied, frowning at him in confusion.

“Because I don’t want to go on a date by myself.”

“What?”

“I’m trying to ask you out, but you’re making it very difficult.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, you’ll go out with me?”

“Yes.”

“Great,” he said, beaming. “I was thinking we could go to this place in Soho that I heard was really good—I’ll text you the details after work, all right?”

She tried not to smile but was unsuccessful. “All right.”

***

“Have you been online at all today?” Izzy asked when she got to Rae’s flat that evening for their usual post-weekend debriefing.

“Not yet,” said Rae, letting her friend inside and shutting the door. “Why?”

Izzy pointed her phone in Rae’s direction. “We’re in the news. Eyewitness reports of us at that fire last night.”

“So?” Rae wasn’t sure why Izzy seemed so upset about that.

“So this is exactly what Dr. Commotion wanted to happen! He wanted it to be public knowledge that Mr. Hartley was helped by supers in order to weaken his anti-super stance.”

“Okay, but you can see how this benefits us, right?” said Rae. “We’re supers, after all.”

“I know, but he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this sort of thing,” said Izzy. “Setting people’s homes on fire.”

“You’re right, I know.”

“We have a chance to thwart his next attack, though,” she continued. “My sources tell me that he’s organizing a bank job for tomorrow night. His plan is to hit the Barclays at Piccadilly Circus some time after closing by going through the Boots next door.”

Rae was not sure who Izzy’s “sources” were, but they were usually right about this sort of thing.

“What’s our plan, then? Are we going to—” Rae said, but stopped when she remembered. “Oh no, I have a date tomorrow night!”

Izzy perked up. “Really? With who?”

“Oh, just, uh, Finn. From work,” said Rae, trying to make it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.

“Aww, finally!” said Izzy. “Well, you can’t cancel, not after waiting this long.”

“You know, the restaurant we’re going to isn’t that far from the bank,” Rae began, an idea forming in her head. “What if you stake it out while I’m at dinner, and text me when you see any action?”

“You won’t mind me interrupting your date?”

“Not if it means we can foil one of Dr. Commotion’s plots. Though, I have to say, it’s a bit weird for him to just rob some local bank branch, is it not?” said Rae.

“He probably figures it’s an easy target,” Izzy suggested.

“But there’s no political stance to it.”

“I bet he just needs cash for keeping up his operation. Being headquartered in the Gherkin must be expensive,” she added. “Besides, he’s robbed people before.”

“Specific individuals, yes,” said Rae. “Bigoted aristocrats and corrupt politicians. This seems arbitrary in comparison.”

“Maybe he’s desperate?”

“Let’s just hope so.”

***

It had been quite a while since Rae had gone on a date. When was she supposed to find the time to meet anyone, what with her time-consuming day job and her secret double life?

She was actually quite surprised that Finn had asked her out. She knew he had a much more active social life than she did and probably met lots of people. He had way more options. But he had chosen her this particular evening, and for that she was glad.

Rae met with Finn outside the restaurant he’d picked and he greeted her with a kiss on the cheek.

“You look nice,” he said with a smile.

She’d made a point of wearing a dress, since he usually only saw her in an unflattering lab coat that seemed to have been designed for some sort of rectangle. (He’d clearly put some effort in as well, although he always looked good, even in a lab coat.)

“Thanks, so do you,” she said.

“Shall we?” he added as he held the door open for her.

“Such a gentleman.”

The maître d’ greeted them and asked for the name of their reservation. Rae wasn’t used to going to restaurants that required reservations, so it was all very exciting.

She and Finn were escorted to their table, and she tried to find a place underneath to put her oversized handbag—which she’d brought to stash her date clothes when it was time to transform into InvinciGal, since she was wearing the spandex under her dress.

As she perused the menu, Rae couldn’t help but wonder how Finn could afford to take her to a place like this. She knew how much money he made because she did the exact same job as he did. Of course, he probably wasn’t spending so much cash on spandex costumes and custom masks, so he had more disposable income, she figured.

She suddenly remembered that she’d left her phone in her handbag, and reached down to fish it out so she could keep it on the table in case Izzy texted her.

“Is something wrong?” Finn asked as he looked at her over his menu.

“No, it’s just that, um, my friend is sick and, uh, I told her to let me know if she needs anything,” she said.

He appeared quite concerned. “Is it serious?”

“No, no, just a bug,” she replied quickly so that he wouldn’t worry. “It’s fine.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“Absolutely.” She opened her menu again and added, “Mm, everything sounds so good,” trying not to let on that she didn’t recognize about half the words on it.

“Does it?” he asked as he examined his own. “Because I don’t recognize about half these words.”

Rae laughed a little. “Then why did you choose this place?”

“I’d heard good things about it,” he said. “I only wish I knew the names of more types of mushrooms so that I could be sure to avoid those. Chanterelle, that’s a mushroom, right?”

“I think so,” she said. “Are you allergic?”

“No, just picky.”

“Then you’ll want to avoid anything that says ‘porcini’ as well.”

“Good to know.” He looked up at her again and smiled. “I’m glad you agreed to go out with me.”

“Oh really?” she said, keeping her eyes on her menu in a coy manner.

“Really,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve wanted to ask you out for a while now, actually.”

“So what made you decide that now was the time?” she asked as she set down her menu for a moment.

“It was just something that happened over the weekend—I told you how I went out with my friends on Saturday, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, we were celebrating ‘cause a couple of them just got engaged—to each other, I should clarify,” he said. “And it just made me realize that I needed to grab life by the horns more often, you know? Do things that I was afraid of doing.”

“And you were afraid of asking me out?” she said.

“Well, I wasn’t sure if you found my daily coffee antics endearing or pathetic.”

“Both.”

He returned his attention to his menu, but he was still smiling. “So this is a pity date.”

“Something like that,” she joked. Just then, her phone vibrated on the table, grabbing her attention. “Sorry,” she said as she picked it up. “I know this is rude, but I just need to…”

She checked her phone and there was a message from Izzy that read, _“Go time.”_

“Oh no,” she added, looking up at Finn. “I know this is terrible timing—and I was just kidding about this being a pity date, I swear—but I need to go, like, now.”

“Wait, what’s wrong?” he asked, his brow furrowed with concern.

“It’s just my friend, she needs me right away and—”

“Okay.” His expression turned to disappointment.

“We’ll do this again some time, all right?” she added as she picked up her handbag and stood up. “I’m really, really sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “Go take care of your friend.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See you.”

***

Rae ducked into an alley outside the restaurant to change out of her dress and date shoes—which she stuffed into her handbag—and put on her mask and trainers before making her way as quickly as she could to Piccadilly Circus. Although the street was quite crowded, most people tended to dodge out of the way when a masked stranger came running at them, so she made it there in very little time.

Izzy was outside Boots when Rae got there, talking to someone who was soaking wet. In fact, most of the people standing nearby were dripping, even though it hadn’t rained.

“What happened here, RapidFire?” Rae asked.

“Apparently, someone activated the sprinkler system to evacuate everyone from the store,” said Izzy. “There were drilling noises coming from inside a minute ago.”

“So there’s a chance our perpetrators are still close by,” said Rae. “Let’s go!”

She led the way into the building, Izzy following close behind. The sprinklers were still on, so she quickly became drenched and kept having to wipe water away from her eyes as she ran towards the back of the store.

“Hey!” she shouted when she saw a couple of people in ski masks kneeling beside a giant hole in the wall, zipping up duffel bags.

They grabbed their bags and started running towards the back exit.

“Follow them,” Rae told Izzy, who was gone in a flash. Rae ran after them, as well, since she knew that Izzy would not be able to hold down two grown men on her own.

When she got outside, Izzy was standing alone near a dumpster.

“Where’d they go?” asked Rae, wondering why Izzy hadn’t followed them.

“I’m sorry, InvinciGal, but they climbed up the fire escape to the roof, and you know I’m afraid of heights, and—”

“It’s okay, I’ll get them.”

Rae quickly scaled the fire escape and ended up on the roof of the building, where she saw the robbers running away. She charged after them, and had nearly caught up to them when they dropped their bags and just kept running. She stopped to inspect the bags, wondering why they would let go of their loot like that.

It wasn’t until she unzipped one of the bags that she understood.

Instead of money, the bag was filled with thousands of matte black cards, each with glossy text. _DRC_.


	3. Chapter 3

“Morning, Rae.” Finn smiled when Rae walked into the lab the next morning.

“I’m so so sorry,” she said, embarrassed as she rushed straight past him to her workstation.

“Sorry for what?” he asked, bringing over her usual cup of coffee.

“For bailing on you last night,” she replied. She took a seat as he handed her the takeaway cup. “I feel really stupid about it now, considering it was a false alarm.”

“Your friend wasn’t really sick?”

“Uh, no, I mean, she was sick, she just didn’t really need me there,” she said. “It was a waste of time.”

“Helping out a good friend is never a waste of time, Rae,” he said.

“I suppose…”

“Did you hear the news, though?” he continued, leaning against her worktop.

“What news?” she asked. She worried he was going to mention the news about the fake bank robbery and how InvinciGal let the vandals get away.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a news article, which he then showed to her. “The hotel right next to the restaurant was burgled last night,” he said. “I stayed to have dinner, since I’d been wanting to try this place for a while, and I saw the police cars drive up with their sirens blaring. It was a whole thing.”

She grabbed the phone from his hands to get a closer look. “The hotel was burgled?” she said as she skimmed the article.

“Well, one of the guests,” said Finn.

Rae stopped reading when she reached the second-to-last paragraph. “Eyewitnesses claim that the burglar was able to move objects through the air with his mind?”

“Yeah, I guess it was some kind of super,” he said. “Which is a shame, when you think about it. I mean, they have a hard enough time getting respect as it is, and then you have someone pull a stunt like this and it’s just going to make it that much harder for all the others.”

“Yeah…” she said, handing the phone back to him, though she was only half listening. She was too busy being angry at herself for letting Dr. Commotion trick her like that.

“In any case, I’m willing to let you make it up to me,” Finn said, drawing her attention once again.

Rae looked confused, like she’d missed part of the conversation.

“Make up our date, that is,” he added.

“Oh, yes, right,” she said.

“Do you think your friend will be feeling better by Friday?”

“My friend?”

“Just, if your friend is still sick, it might be a bit risky to plan a date, but—“

“Oh, yeah, she’ll be fine.”

“In that case, we should do something Friday night, to celebrate the end of the work week,” he said.

“Sounds good,” she replied. “But maybe no fancy-schmancy restaurants this time.”

“You can choose the venue. I’ll go anywhere.”

“Getting a jumpstart on your work, now that’s what I like to see,” Archie said sarcastically when he walked in and saw Finn practically sitting on Rae’s worktop.

“I just wasn’t sure if we had a case study today,” said Finn, standing up straight.

“We do, but Rae and I will handle it,” said Archie. “You’re doing data entry today.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

***

“InvinciGal,” said Dr. Commotion when Rae walked into his glass office once again. “Good to see you. Where’s your other half?”

“RapidFire’s busy tonight, so I’m flying solo,” said Rae. She sat down across the desk from him and flung one of the black cards from the heist in his direction. “Nice trick,” she added.

He picked up the card after it landed on the desk and examined it. “That was a trick?”

“The fake bank robbery to distract me from the real hotel burglary,” she said loudly.

“Oh, that. One of my more ingenious plans, right?”

“One thing I don’t get, though, is why you would pretend to rob a bank so close to the site of the actual crime being committed,” she said.

“Why? Does it _irritate_ you that you were so close?” He smirked.

“This whole scheme was just meant to annoy me?”

“That was an enjoyable side effect of the plan, yes, but not it’s main goal,” he told her as he pushed himself away from his desk and stood up. “And now, I suppose, you think I am going to tell you what the main goal was, since I am overly-confident that you will not be able to get in my way, is that right?” he continued, pacing around the office.

“Admit it, you love gloating about your plots,” she said as he came around behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders, causing her to hunch forward in her seat.

“You know, I do, I really do,” he said. “So, okay, I’ll give you a hint.” He whirled around her and hopped up onto the desk in front of her, crossing his legs. “Do you have any idea who Robert Gilmour is?”

“Lorelai’s father?” said Rae. “No, wait, that’s Richard.”

Dr. Commotion shook his head impatiently. “ _Robert_ Gilmour is the head of a very secret organization intended to ensure national security,” he said.

“Like MI5?”

“Way more secret than that,” he said. “Suffice it to say that the contents of his hard drive could be very dangerous, in the wrong hands.”

“And I’m guessing it’s in your hands, right?” she said.

“And there it shall safely remain, unless the government fails to comply with a few tiny demands,” he said, holding up his forefinger and thumb to indicate just how tiny his demands were.

“So you’re blackmailing the whole country?”

His head wavered from side to side like he was trying to think if that was the best way to describe it. “I suppose,” he finally said. “But really, I’m doing it for you.”

“For me?” She drew her head back in surprise.

“And all supers, for that matter,” he continued. “This about our human rights. We need legislation to protect supers from the kind of discrimination we face every day. We need to lead the way with changes to public policy.”

“Can’t you just become an activist or something?”

“I am, in a manner of speaking,” he said. “I just work outside the law, because the law is broken.”

“Except now everyone thinks that supers are just a bunch of criminals, when they hear about the stuff you do!” she said angrily. “You know you were in the news this morning, right?”

“I didn’t know; I get all my news from Twitter, and I only follow Stephen Fry and birdsrightsactivist,” he said. “What did the news say about me? Did anyone mention how devilishly handsome I am?”

Rae scowled. “They only mentioned that you could move objects with your mind, and that you burgled one of the hotel guests. The details were fairly limited.”

“Telekinesis is such a rare super power that I bet most people won’t even believe it,” he replied, sliding down off the desk. “I’m not worried.”

She watched him as he walked around the room again and sat back down in his chair.

“Is that all you came to discuss?” he asked, picking up the card off the desk. He flicked it into the air above him, where it hovered for a moment before he started twirling his finger around, causing the card to spiral upwards until he got bored and sent it flying back against the window behind him.

“For now,” she said as she got up from her seat. “But this isn’t the last you’ll be seeing of me.”

He grinned. “I’m counting on it.”

***

For their second date—which was really more like a first date—Rae suggested that she and Finn meet up at her local pub, where she felt most comfortable. It was nothing special, but she happened to know one of the bartenders and he would occasionally comp her drink. He was a super, too, and one of only two people in the world who knew about Rae’s secret identity—just him and Izzy.

She was surprised to find that Finn was already there when she arrived, sitting at a small table. He stood up to greet her with a peck on the cheek again.

“Am I late?” she asked.

“No, I’m just notoriously early for things,” he said. “Here, have a seat. I’ll get you a drink.”

She told him her drink order as she sat down, relieved that she didn’t have to worry about fitting her giant handbag under the table, as this one was even smaller than the last. But she didn’t need to bring a change of clothes with her this time; there was no heist, real or pretend, planned for the evening. Not to her knowledge anyway. Besides, she thought it was fair for her to be off-duty for one night, at least. Let someone else deal with the drunken brawls for a change.

“So,” Finn said when he returned with their beverages and sat back down. “How’ve you been?”

“You mean since I saw you two hours ago?” she said.

“Yes.” He smiled cheekily. “Anything new and exciting happen since then?”

“Well, my key got jammed in the lock for a bit when I got home from work, so I thought I was going to have to call a locksmith and cancel tonight, but then it turned out all right. How about you?”

“Nothing that thrilling, no,” he said. “Not until you showed up.”

She frowned in confusion. “What happened then?”

“You showed up,” he replied, still smiling. “It was the highlight of my day.”

“That’s kind of sad,” she said as she took a sip of her drink.

“You showing up is the highlight of most of my days,” he said. “When you call in sick to work, I hate it, and not just because I have to drink two large cups of coffee myself, which hurts my stomach.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that you don’t have to drink both?”

“No.”

Rae laughed for the first of many times that evening. He was funny, she thought. Although she always had fun talking to Finn at work, it was usually just short bursts of banter at break times, not sustained conversation.

He told her all about how he was born and raised in Lincolnshire—“Hey, me too,” she said—and how he ended up working where he was now.

“Not many people know this,” he began seriously, lowering his voice, “but my younger brother has a really rare and powerful ability—he’s the only one in our family to have one that we know of—and I decided to study biochemistry to learn more about superpowers so I could help him control his.”

She hadn’t realized that this was an issue that was so personal to him. It was no wonder he was so concerned about the treatment of supers, now.

“Anyway, I ended going to uni with Archie,” he continued. “He was a couple years ahead ‘cause he skipped a few grades in primary school or something, but that’s where I met him and learned about the research he was doing.”

“I didn’t know the two of you went so far back,” she said.

“Yeah, we’re good mates,” he said. “He just likes giving me a hard time.”

“Well, my story is not nearly as interesting. I just saw the job posting and applied for it.” She left out the part about how she had been hunting down superpower researchers for a year trying to find a job in the field.

“We were just lucky to get the funding to hire another person; we’d been trying for months,” he said. “Even luckier that you took the job.”

She scoffed and lifted her glass to her lips. “You sweet-talker,” she said before taking a gulp.

“Now, I don’t want to ruin the evening or anything,” he said. “But I’ve got an early train ride tomorrow morning—I’m visiting my family for the weekend, see—so I really should be heading out.”

“Oh.” She set her glass back down. “Yeah, okay, let’s go.”

“You can stay and finish your drink if you want—”

“No, I’m done. I’ll walk out with you,” she said. She followed him out to the curb where he stopped and looked like he was waiting for something. “So…”

“I was going to walk you home, but I don’t know what direction that is,” he said.

“Oh, you don’t need to do that, really.”

“It’s not a problem, I swear,” he added. “I can’t let you walk alone at this time of night.”

She didn’t want to explain why that wasn’t an issue, so she let him walk her home. It wasn’t that far, anyway, and was the same direction as the tube station.

“This is it,” she said when they stopped in front of her building. “I think I can take it from here.”

“Okay, then,” he said with a smile. He took a step towards her and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Goodnight, Rae,” he said before he kissed her.

She hadn’t been expecting it, so she was a little disoriented when she responded, “Yeah.”

He was still smiling at her as he stepped back. “I’ll see you Monday,” he said.

She smiled a little as well. “I’m counting on it.”

***

“The recovery room is just down the hall to your left,” Archie said to the case study sitting in front of him, without looking up from the file in his hands.

Rae continued cleaning up as the case study left the room.

“I need to stop by the restroom; can you take these notes and put them in my office, Rae?” said Archie, holding up the file folder.

“Yeah, sure,” she replied as she grabbed it from him. She finished labelling and packaging up the samples she’d taken and dropped them off for storage on her way back to the lab with the notes.

“How come I always get desk duty?” Finn asked when Rae returned alone.

“Clearly I’m the favourite,” she teased. “He’s even asked me to put something in his office for him.” She waved the folder in the air.

“Teacher’s pet.”

“Jealous?” She continued past him towards Archie’s office, which wasn’t locked during the day, but she and Finn still never went in there unless specifically asked.

Rather than tossing the folder onto his desk, she walked around to the other side and placed it neatly beside his keyboard. She figured he would appreciate that. In doing so, however, she bumped his mouse, which woke up his monitor.

She glanced at the screen, as it caught her attention when it turned on, and saw a large block of text that she didn’t feel like reading. At least not until she glimpsed the words “superpower antidote.”

Why would Archie be writing about a superpower antidote, she wondered. She’d heard of the concept before, of course, but it was always some narrow-minded politician or celebrity spokesperson claiming that it was something the world needed. Surely, as a man of science, Archie had to be against it. Perhaps he was just writing about how it wasn’t possible. She’d have to read more to find out…

She took a seat at the desk and started from the beginning of the paragraph. By the time she reached the end, she was in complete shock.

Not only was this written _in favour_ of developing a superpower antidote, it also detailed how it would be possible to create and administer one based on the research Rae and Finn had been doing for months. She thought she was working to help supers by learning more about them, not to take away their powers.

She heard Archie return to the lab, so she quickly stood up and pushed the desk chair back in before walking out, giving him a courteous smile as she past him on his way to his office.

“Hey, Finn,” she said to her co-worker. “I need to get something from storage but I left my keycard at home. Can you help me?”

“Um, sure,” he replied, though he seemed to think it was an odd request. He followed her out to the corridor where she grabbed his arm and dragged him into the nearest empty examination room. “I thought were heading to storage—”

“I just said that so I could talk to you alone,” she said, looking around like she was making sure they weren’t followed. “How much do you know about Archie’s research, about the research he’s having us do?”

“What do you mean? We’re trying to find links between inherited—”

“Or is that just what he wants us to think?”

“Your eyes are really wide right now—”

“I saw what he was working on in there,” she continued. “He’s writing up a paper about how a superpower antidote is possible, and he’s using our research to back it up! He’s anti-super, Finn!”

“Are you sure you’re not just misinterpreting—”

“I’m not an imbecile; I know what I read.”

“That’s just… sick,” he said. “Well, we can’t let him do that, can we? I mean, I can’t just sit by and actively help him try to eliminate supers.”

“I thought you might say that.”

“What are we going to do, Rae?”

“I’m not sure yet,” she said. “But I think I might know someone who’d be willing to help.”


	4. Chapter 4

As much as Rae hated the way that Dr. Commotion went about his business, she at least knew that he would want to stand up for supers’ rights, and he would be outraged to learn about Archie’s research. She headed straight to his headquarters after work—she always kept a spare mask and costume in her work bag just in case—but he wasn’t there, so she left a message with one of his associates that she wanted to meet with him to discuss something important.

“He’ll be in touch,” said his associate.

“But, how—”

“He’ll be in touch.”

What she didn’t expect was for him to show up at her flat, but when there was a knock at the door later that night, she looked through the peephole to see a familiar mask. She quickly hooked the door chain in the latch; there was no way she was letting him in. It was one thing to confront him as InvinciGal, on her own terms, but she was not about to face him in her home, as Rae.

“What are you doing here?” she said loudly through the door.

“Heard you were trying to get ahold of me earlier,” he replied. “Well, here I am.”

“How did you find where I live?” she asked.

“I have my ways.”

“Well, I’m not going to let you in, so you can just leave and we’ll discuss this at your office tomorrow!”

“But I schlepped all the way out here just to see you, InvinciGal,” he said. “Or should I say, Rae?”

“What?” she said quietly as the door chain started to unhook itself and the lock started to turn the other way all on its own. She backed away from the door just before it flew open and Dr. Commotion walked in.

He shrugged off his long jacket, but it didn’t fall to the ground. Instead he pointed to a hook on the wall and it went and hung itself up. Rae kept backing away until she reached the back of the sofa in the lounge. She remembered that she’d left her phone on the arm and reached for it, but before she could grab it, it hovered in the air for a moment and went flying into Dr. Commotion’s hand.

“You know it’s rude to check your phone when you have company, right?” he said, pocketing the device as he continued towards her.

“How do you know who I am?” she asked, leaning as far back as she could without falling over.

“I’ve known your true identity for a while now, Rae,” he said. He snapped his fingers and the sofa started to move, pushing Rae towards him as he kept slowly advancing. They both stopped once he was mere inches away from her, and he tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m surprised you didn’t figure out mine, though,” he added before he kissed her.

“Finn!” she exclaimed, pushing him away.

He removed his mask, laughing, and flattened out his hair. “I didn’t think it was that hard to tell, what with this thing only covering half my face,” he said. “But I guess I’m just a really good actor.”

“I don’t believe this,” she said as she shoved him aside so she could pace back and forth. “Why—I mean, how did you—Why did you—?”

“Need some help finishing a sentence, there?”

“I thought you liked me!” she blurted, though she wished she could have said something that sounded less pathetic.

His expression contorted into one of concern. “I do like you, Rae,” he said. “The Finn that you know from work, that’s the real me. This,”—he tossed his mask aside—“is just the crap I have to do to effect social change. But everything you know about me is true. Except I don’t have a brother; I’m the one with the rare ability, which motivated me to study super powers.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, still pacing. “Why didn’t you just tell me who you were?”

“You didn’t tell me who you were,” he pointed out.

“But you already knew!”

“Look, I figured you probably wouldn’t want to go out with me if you knew I was your _arch-nemesis_.”

“Why did you even ask me out in the first place?”

“Well,” he said, perching on the back of the sofa, “the first time it was so that I could make sure you were in the area when fake robbery went down—for my own amusement more than anything else—but the second time was just because I like hanging out with you. As Finn. Me.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Thank you.”

She stopped pacing and glared at him. “So, what now?” she said, throwing her hands up in frustration. “I mean, obviously we can’t date anymore, but we still have to work together and we have to find a way to stop Archie from using the research to develop an antidote, and—”

“Whoa, okay, hold on a minute,” he cut in. “First, I don’t see why we can’t date—I’m still me, after all—and second, I think I have an idea how we can stop him.”

“Is it illegal?” she asked.

“Mm, unethical, perhaps…”

***

“Morning, Finn,” Rae said when she walked into the lab the next morning, though without her usual friendly tone.

“Sleep well, Rae?” Finn asked as he headed towards her, coffee in hand.

“You know, you don’t need to do this anymore,” she said quietly. “The game is up. I’m humiliated and you won; congratulations.”

“Rae, if you think me bringing you coffee is based on anything other than my sincere desire to get to know you better, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied as she took the cup from him. “Is the plan still on?”

“I’ve got the drive right here,” he said, patting his lab coat pocket.

“Finn, one of these days you’re going to be at your own desk when I arrive in the morning and I am going to be floored,” said Archie as he entered the lab.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” said Finn, heading over to his workstation.

“Don’t get too comfy over there,” Archie added. “We’ve got a case study today and you’re coming with me,” he said. “Rae, you’ll continue Finn’s data entry from earlier.”

“I thought I’d be doing desk duty today,” Finn said, a hint of worry in his voice.

“She’s faster at typing,” Archie replied. “Besides, I thought you hated doing that.”

“Right. I’m not complaining.” Finn waited until Archie’s back was turned and sent the flash drive in his pocket floating through the air over to Rae’s workstation.

She looked at him with her eyebrows wrinkled in the middle, like she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with it. He pointed at her computer, as if she didn’t already know that that’s where it went. He was not very helpful, since he had to leave the lab with Archie, but he shot Rae an apologetic glance as he did so.

She waited until the heavy lab door was fully shut before plugging the drive into the computer. All she knew about it was that one of Finn’s associates—or, rather, one of Dr. Commotion’s associates—had created a program that could rewrite all the data on the server, thereby destroying all the information that had been gathered so far.

She was no computer hacker, so lucky for her it was just a matter of running the program and the rest took care of itself automatically. She pulled out the drive once it was complete and stashed it over in Finn’s messenger bag.

Finn and Archie returned fifteen minutes later, so it was time to execute part two of the plan—feigning ignorance. Of course, she wasn’t totally prepared for this, as it was supposed to be Finn who sabotaged the data, but she had to think on her feet now.

“Archie, thank goodness you’re back,” she said, rushing over to him when he walked in. “I don’t know what happened, but when I tried to open the database, it wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t open any of our files—it’s like everything’s just disappeared!”

“What?” he said, following her quickly back to her computer. “That’s impossible!”

She showed him how all the files were missing and he slammed his hands down onto the desk.

“That’s _years_ of work, gone!” he said angrily. “This can’t be happening, this can’t—We’ll have to call someone in from IT right now,” he added, storming off towards his office and slamming the door behind him.

Rae could see through the window that he picked up the phone to make a call and started yelling at someone on the other end. She turned to Finn, who was sitting at his workstation diffidently, which made her nervous. “They won’t be able to recover the files, will they?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” he replied, though he didn’t sound too certain. “I just hope they can’t tell whose computer ran the program…”

“What?”

“Well, I didn’t really think about that because it was supposed to be my computer, and I was planning on quitting this job anyway,” he said.

It wasn’t that Rae particularly wanted to keep this job, either, but she figured getting fired would make it more difficult to get a job in the future. She sat down at her workstation and dropped her head into her hands. “I am going to be in such sh—”

“They’re sending someone right away,” Archie announced as he stepped out of his office, seeming slightly calmer than before. “They’ll sort this out.”

***

Rae was literally on the edge of her seat when Archie led the IT guy out of his office.

“Rae, Finn,” he said once the IT guy was gone, “would you please step into my office?” He sounded serious, but not angry.

Finn looked over at Rae for a second before getting up, and she followed suit. Archie instructed them to sit down as he shut the door.

“We spent over an hour in here trying to recover my work,” he said as he took a seat, too, “and yet all the data we could find were the letters DRC over and over again.”

Finn snickered for a second, seemingly caught off-guard by his own calling card.

“Something funny, Nelson?”.

He straightened up quickly. “No, nothing. Sorry.”

“As it turns out,” Archie continued, “it looks like we have a case of deliberate file tampering and destruction, meaning someone with access to our server had to do this, on purpose.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Seeing as the two of you are the only ones besides myself with access to the server, I have to wonder…”

“I did it,” said Finn.

Archie inhaled sharply. “I see. Well—”

“No, I did it,” Rae stepped in.

“No, I did,” Finn argued.

“No—“

“Fine, I’ll fire you both if I have to!” Archie snapped at them. He took a deep breath and continued. “I just have to ask, why did you—either of you—choose to destroy my life’s work, hmm?”

“We weren’t about to sit back and let you develop an antidote right under our noses!” said Finn.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s right, buddy; I’m a super,” he added. He pointed at a paper lying on the desk and lifted it into the air, causing it to crumple when he made a fist with his hand, and then tear itself to shreds when he expanded all his fingers. “And there is no way in hell I’m going to allow some pathetic bigot like you try and take that away from me. That’s why.”

Archie looked slightly amused, which was not the reaction Rae was expecting from him. “You destroyed my research so that I wouldn’t develop an antidote?” he said. “As if I’m the only one in the country working on that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Finn, you realize that _everyone_ studying super powers is trying to find an antidote, right?” he continued. “The government is willing to pay big money to anyone who develops an antidote so that they can administer it forcefully to any and all supers, you know. In fact, when you apply for funding for super research, it’s just implied that you’re going to be researching an antidote.”

“But that’s not what it said on your grant proposal,” said Finn.

“Well, yeah, nobody can explicitly _say_ that that’s what they’re researching; it’s not very PC,” said Archie. “But if you think that destroying my research is going to stop the flow of progress, you are very wrong, my friend.”

Finn stood up and lunged towards his former boss, but Rae grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“This is way bigger than you or me, Finn,” Archie went on. “You chop off one head, and three more grow back in its place. You can’t win this war.”

***

“Cheers, m’dear,” Finn said as he held up his glass.

“Fine, cheers,” said Rae, reluctantly clinking her glass against his before taking a sip. She wasn’t very big on scotch, but it was all that he kept in his glass office.

He winced after taking a sip as well, which suggested that he wasn’t used to it either. “You seem glum,” he said to her.

“My whole world’s just been shattered, multiple times,” she said. “I’m allowed to be glum.”

“But think of this as an opportunity to write a new chapter of your life.”

“I preferred the chapter where I was employed.”

“I could give you a job,” he said, taking another sip of his drink.

“I don’t think ‘Evil Henchman’ would look too great on my CV,” she replied dryly.

“Not that,” he said, laughing a little. “I’m thinking of starting a organization that runs shelters for homeless supers, hooks them up with non-prejudiced healthcare providers, helps them with job-seeking, that sort of thing. And I could use someone to help with admin.”

Rae stared at him for a moment. “Are you serious?”

“Why not?”

“But you—You’re… a villain,” she said.

“I guess that depends on where you’re standing,” he said. “My methods may be—“

“Illegal.”

“—unconventional, but my intentions are righteous, are they not?”

“I guess that depends on where you’re standing,” she said as she attempted another sip. She was starting to get used to it.

“I just want to live in a world where supers are seen as fully and truly human,” he said. “The anti-super movement is growing, Rae, and it starts in our very own government. We can’t allow fellow supers to get treated like rubbish, and we can’t let them stamp out our gifts.”

“So, what, are we just going to go around the country sabotaging everyone’s research?”

“If we have to.”

She scoffed.

“Rae, why did you decide to use your powers to become a vigilante?” he asked, leaning forward in his seat.

“I dunno,” she said, swirling her glass around. “I thought I could help people, I guess.”

“Well, maybe the best way to help people is to create change from a higher level,” he said.

“What am I supposed to do, then?” she said as she looked him straight in the eye.

“Stand somewhere else.”


End file.
